Murali's run out and the spirit of the game.

I'm sure that by now most of you will be aware of the controversional circumstances in which SL's Muttiah Muralitharan was run out today, but were NZ right to run him out, and does the 'Spirit of Cricket' hold any meaning any more?

Originally Posted by Top_Cat

1) Had double pneumonia as a kid, as did my twin sis. Doctors told my parents to pray that we lived through the night. Dad said **** off, I'm an atheist, you ****s better save my kids, etc. Then prayed anyway.

I'd have done it. It's a Test match; you just don't wander out your crease and expect to get away with it.

Had a similar instance in an U13 game last year actually, batsman struck on the pads (not LBW) and then just stood out of his crease as the ball rolled to slip... who wandered up and flicked the bails off.

Yeah, no issues here. To draw an analogy with football, I'd say it's roughly the moral equivalent of a striker having an open goal to aim after an opposing keeper has slipped whilst taking a goal-kick and accidentally passing the ball to him. It would be unprofessional for the attacker not to put the ball in the empty net & it would've been remiss of McCullum not to whip the bails off.

Well in that case I don't think McCullum did anything wrong at all. The whole 'spirit of the game' thing doesn't apply here as far as I am concerned. It goes along the lines of the Perzynski incident that year when the White Sox won the World Series.